Dear Esther will finally reach PS4 and Xbox One later this year, with no firm release date currently available.
More exciting news! We’re partnering with @CurveDigital to bring Dear Esther to PS4 & Xbox One! https://t.co/comdVNrr1g
— The Chinese Room (@ChineseRoom) 6 April 2016
Walking simulators. Weird concept, right? Why would we want to spend a game walking when we could be flying or shooting or pretty much anything else game developers can imagine?
Well, as with any genre, it all comes down to the stories and gameplay. In terms of gameplay, you might expect that they don’t differ all too much but you’d be wrong there. Dear Esther plays very differently to Firewatch, as does Adrift. Set on a disintegrating space station, ala Gravity, Adrift might be faster-paced and seem more immediately dramatic but make no mistake, it too is a walking simulator. Or a space-walking simulator perhaps.
On paper most games within this genre don’t seem like much fun to play.
Walk here.
Find something.
Walk somewhere else.
Oh, here’s a note.
Walking again.
But that’s rarely how it works out. These games are filled with a serene form of wonder, and also a degree of fear and trepidation, you can walk but you can’t run. Who knows what might be lurking out there, it might not be a monster but it could be a piece of information that radically alters your perception of the world you inhabit.
Developer The Chinese Room broke through with Dear Esther, really bringing the term ‘walking simulator’ to the gaming community at large, their more recent game Everybody’s Gone to Rapture plonked the player in a gorgeously rendered English village where the inhabitants had seemingly disappeared, but not without a trace. It was slow and thoughtful game, beautifully designed.
Many console owners have been waiting for this one, and if you’ve played Everybody’s Gone to Rapture, definitely check out Dear Esther.
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